Think of it this way: It's hard to push a car, even though there is very little friction in its wheels. Zero gravity doesn't mean zero mass, it just means you don't have to counter gravity.

Is it too much to ask, though, that women feel it socially acceptable to ask men out? Gender equality goes both ways. I'm tired of finding out after it's too late that someone was actually into me, and I find it crass to ask out every woman I meet in the hopes of scoring a date.

Perhaps one day when we have more experience we will be willing to launch a vehicle directly into its target orbit - One hour from the launch pad to being in sight of the ISS should certainly be possible. However, in this circumstance, caution is the ruler of the day. This will be SpaceX's first ever attempt at an orbital rendezvous. There's nothing on board that is using consumables to survive, there's plenty of time to slow down and get things right while remotely piloting a never-before-flown spacecraft into an incredibly expensive space station with several people on board.

I saw that TNG episode. As I recall, the kid planted radishes in this special dirt and they came up all weird.

Then you're being coy with us about details that would really help you get good answers about this situation. And most likely, these answers will not be technological, but rather revolve around (a) seeking marriage/psychological/etc. counseling, (b) contacting law enforcement, or (c) just talking to his wife/children about what's going on.

The biggest favor you can do for this guy is to not indulge his creepy need to spy on his household. It's passive aggressiveness at its worst, when he really just needs to confront whatever issue this is head-on.

http://search.dilbert.com/comic/Buzzword%20Bingo

You're supposed to read the claims. It's the most important part of the patent, and the least-read by the Slashdotter.

In this case, paraphrasing, the patent is all about providing purchasing recommendations to someone who is watching a video based on items that are purchased by other people while they are watching that same video. It could be used for home shopping networks on TV, of course.

Modern DSP techniques can implement a brick wall filter with a phase response anywhere from linear phase (equal pre and post ringing) and minimum phase (100% post-ringing). You can even do maximum phase (100% pre-ringing) if you're crazy.

> even home recording is laughed at (technically) if you are not using 24/96

This is mostly home recordists one-upping each other. Actual professionals in the audio industry, especially people working on gigantic projects like movies where halving your DSP/CPU/HDD needs is a direct benefit of 48k over 96k, recognize that there are very very few actual audible benefits to 96k over 48k.

PCM audio was originally recorded on video tape, and you needed to be able to record it in both PAL and NTSC standards. So the fact that the number is highly composite is largely a consequence of having to be divisible by both 50 and 60. More here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/44.1_kHz